Hi ,
Have you ever heard of the phrase “dobbing”?
If you have then I’m about to share everything you need to know about it. If you haven’t, then I’m going to take you on your first journey into a new method of betting.
Like a lot of betting opportunities, dobbing became possible because of Betfair and the ability to act as a punter and bookmaker when you bet.
The name comes from the phrase Double Or Bust, or DOB for short.
The main principle of this method is to bet on the price movements of the race in-running instead of an outright winner.
Let’s break down exactly what a DOB bet is.
A DOB consists of two bets, a back bet which is placed before a race starts and a lay bet which is placed in-running. On occasion it may be possible to get your lay bet matched before the race as well, but most of the time it will be in-play.
The key is that you always place your lay bet for half the odds you took on the back bet and for double the stake.
Let’s look at an example.
If we back a runner at odds of 5.00 for £100 before the race goes off, then we have a potential profit of £400 and a potential loss of £100.
The race goes in-play and we place our lay bet at half the odds, 2.50, for twice the stake, £200.
If the lay bet gets matched then we win no matter what happens.
The possible results are:
In the first scenario you would have lost your £100 back bet and your lay bet doesn’t get matched. This results in an overall loss of £100.
In the second scenario you would have lost your £100 back bet, but your lay bet got matched so you would have won £200 on your lay bet. That’s a profit of £100 before commission or £95 after commission at 5%.
In the third scenario you would win £400 on the back bet but lose £300 on your lay bet. This results in a £100 profit before commission, or £95 after commission at 5%.
To make this method of betting work, what we’re looking for is a way to find horses that are likely to run well (contenders) rather than specifically for horses that we want to win.
It doesn’t matter to us whether they win as long as their odds drop by at least 50% in-running.
To do this we need to use a combination of approaches. The first approach is a form reading style of analysing the runner. This is best done using a pace analysis method, and you should do this in three stages:
1. Determine the pace type of race that is likely to be run
2. Determine the pace type of horse that is most suited to the race
3. Mark the horses that meet the pace conditions in step two
Once you’ve done this, you then want to look into the overall form of the horses that you’ve marked to make sure they’re likely to be able to compete in today's race.
Then we want to analyse the horses in-play prices. To do this you can use the Timeform site which shows the in-play high and low odds for the horses. You’re looking for a horse that hits 50% of its BSP a significant proportion of the time.
If you’re willing to dig even deeper, then you would specifically want to check the in-play odds for races with a similar pace type to the race you are analysing.
Dobbing can be an excellent way to make profits with a lower risk level and higher strike-rate than normal win betting.
All the best,
BetFan
